China jails two men for birth-control riots

BEIJING (Reuters) - A court in southwest China has jailed two men who joined in violent mass protests against harsh family planning measures in May, finding them guilty of falsifying an official document, state media said on Monday.

Thousands of villagers rioted in several towns in Bobai county in the region of Guangxi from May 17-20, ransacking government buildings, burning cars and clashing with police, after being fined for breaching the one-child policy.

The Bobai county court "recently" sentenced a man surnamed Peng and another surnamed Li to two years and one year in prison respectively for stoking the riots, the Xinhua news agency reported.

Peng was among those who were forced to pay up to tens of thousands of yuan for unapproved births of children.

The fines were part of a Bobai government drive to collect "social support fees" after the county was criticized for lax birth control earlier this year.

"Peng became discontented with the government's family planning work...and wanted to retaliate by leading the unwitting masses to create disturbance at the government offices," Xinhua quoted the court as saying.

Peng and Li cut and pasted the letterhead and seals from county authority documents onto a forged document claiming the government would refund the "social support fees" and give additional subsidies to villagers, Xinhua said.

They photocopied 400 copies of the forgery and handed them out to "instigate" residents in at least six townships in Bobai to demand the money, Xinhua said.

China launched its one-child policy in late 1970s to curb a ballooning population, now at more than 1.3 billion. The rules vary across the country but usually limit families to one or, at most, two children.

The government says China would have an additional 300 million people now had it not been for the policy, but it admits that the sometimes arbitrary enforcing measures, such as hefty fines and forced abortions, have long fuelled tension between officials and residents.

State media said in May that 28 people were detained for taking part in the Bobai riots, possibly the most drastic outbursts of discontent over the birth control drive so far.